How IBM Centered Its Talent Strategy on Skills — and Advice for Other Organizations Just Getting Started

The idea of skills-first thinking gained momentum among employers over the past few years — and for good reason. Labor markets were historically tight and expanding the talent pool beyond just people with the right degree or the right previous job title means bringing up to 22x more skilled candidates into the fold, according to new research from LinkedIn. 

But today as labor market slack has returned in many sectors, it’s not just about bringing more people into the talent pool. It’s about bringing the right people with the right skills to help your organization manage all the changes that are disrupting businesses today. Changes like a more unpredictable economy. Changes like big advances in AI that are set to reshape how many of us do our jobs.  

To get expert intel and advice on how all companies can pivot their strategy to put skills at the center, I spoke with Kelli Jordan, vice president of IBMer growth and development. For over two decades, Kelli has been on the forefront of skills-first thinking — overseeing major programs that have gone from seedlings of ideas to best-in-class upskilling and training programs other organizations are now modeling after. Here are my top takeaways from our discussion: 

1. Don’t wait for the perfect time or plan to get started — test and learn, and the first win will snowball into bigger wins

When IBM first started their apprenticeship program — which now encompasses 35 roles across cybersecurity, software development, data science, and design — it was more important to start small and have a success story to build off than to launch something at scale.

At the beginning, IBM worked with senior leaders and subject matter experts to build a framework to test out. Once in the door, IBM apprentices would complete learning courses and on-the-job training designed to develop the skills and competencies essential to future roles at the company.

“We ultimately got lucky with some senior leaders who liked the idea and wanted to take a chance,” Kelli explains, “and it snowballed in a really positive way from there. We had our first cohort come in October 2017 with seven apprentices because a senior leader said I love this and want to take a chance.”

But, of course, it didn’t stop there.

“Within three months,” Kelli reports, “he had peers from across the organization saying I want to get in. In the first year, we went from seven to over 100 apprentices just from word of mouth and seeing the success they had. We’ve now hired almost a thousand apprentices in five years.”

The success of the program has meant continued investment from leadership, with IBM recently committing to invest $250 million globally in Registered Apprenticeship and other training programs by 2025.

2. The proof is in the numbers — showcase impact through measurement, but don’t overlook the power of data alongside human stories to influence

From the get-go, IBM has been thinking about measuring the impact of skills-first programs in sophisticated ways. And that’s helped with continued buy-in and support. This has been especially true when it comes to how they reinforce a culture of continuous learning at the company. 

“Data has really reinforced the impact for us,” Kelli says. “When we look at the average number of learning hours per year for IBMers, it’s 86. And we know that the people we consider to be super learners are actually 20% more likely to move to a new role and 40% more likely to get a promotion.” 

Beyond these clear gains for individual employees who invest in learning, there’s signs that companies like IBM are likely to see gains on retention too — with LinkedIn’s new Global Talent Trends report finding that companies have around a 7% higher retention rate at the three-year mark with employees who have learned skills on the job.

But data alone is not always enough when it comes to bigger change management. For that, Kelli suggests marrying data with human stories to help people make a personal connection.

“Sixty-two percent of people in the U.S. over the age of 25 do not have a bachelor’s degree,” Kelli says. “That means most of us know someone who doesn’t have a bachelor’s degree. And so being able to also tell a story about an apprentice who started working at our coffee shop straight out of high school, met a mentor, learned how to code, took some classes at a community college, came through our apprenticeship program, graduated, and is now a software engineer at IBM. That makes it real to people.” 

3. Think of skills and learning as the “golden thread” across your organization, not just across talent acquisition 

“Skills have to be a golden thread,” Kelli says. “Skills today are expiring at a rate that we’ve never seen. Something you know today is not going to be valuable five years from now in many cases, and with technology that’s even more amplified.”

LinkedIn’s research suggests the same — with skill sets for jobs changing 25% from 2015 to now, and on pace to double in just a few years. That means there’s urgency to not just hiring for skills, but equipping your existing teams with new skills they need to stay relevant. 

Helping employees get familiar with their own skill sets is core to IBM’s approach.

“We’ve built tools that help IBMers understand the skills they have,” Kelli notes, “and how those skills can be built through our learning platforms so that you can see the skills you need for a role, and you can click into our platform to build a particular skill.” 

And Kelli says that all that investment in learning has led to greater internal mobility and career growth for teams.

“Internal mobility and growth,” she says, “is part of our culture. We want IBMers to be in control of their careers, and we want them to be continually finding new opportunities and progressing in their journey.”

4. It all starts with encouraging people to think differently 

Ultimately, to get this work off the ground, you need to change hearts and minds. Skills-first thinking is a new way of thinking for many.

As Kelli points out: “If companies just think differently, they are going to have outsize rewards. We see it in the impact on diversity as a result of these programs and the profile of a candidate that now comes in.”

LinkedIn has found that skills-first hiring can increase the talent pool for workers without bachelor’s degrees by over 20x in the U.S. These are candidates who have the relevant skills but are often filtered out of the hiring process for lacking the right credential. But, as Kelli says, more companies are finally realizing it’s time to expand the aperture.

“The only way you are going to expand the aperture,” Kelli says, “is to be able to think differently about candidate pipelines, how you build skills, and how you welcome people into a company. You can’t continue to do what you’ve always done because you won’t keep up with how the rest of the world is operating.”

While it can seem daunting to get going, it’s clear from IBM’s success that investing in building a skills-first strategy produces dividends and can set your teams up for long-term agility in a labor market that keeps evolving. The key is taking that first step.